fedora for ARM

[Brendan Conoboy]

Ed Swierk wrote:
> Isn't that exactly what we'd get with target emulation? Any available
> host that can run an emulator could then build all of fedora Fedora
> for ARM or PowerPC or whatever.

I don't mean to exclude target emulation as an option, it's just not 
where my particular interest is.  Here's why:

1. It is always slower than native or cross compilation.

2. It only exists for a small number of platforms.

One of the advantages of cross compiling is that it's not just for arm, 
it's for anything.  You can create a mesh of cross compilers such that 
any arch can build a target for any other arch.  Is the s390 slow or 
down?  No problem, build on one of the plentiful x86 hosts.  Cross 
compilation has the potential to realize maximum use of build hosts and 
consequently turn around faster builds.

> Supporting cross-compiling would be great, but having spent a several
> weeks fighting with Python and its libraries last year and losing, I
> suspect scouring the other nine zillion Fedora packages for

Packages like Python and Perl do take some work, but a number of 
individuals have already done that work.  Multiple times.  Multiple 
approaches.  Fedora becoming cross friendly could have the effect of 
unifying those efforts, getting cross changes upstream, ending all the 
waste.

> That said, there is certainly room for both approaches, and getting
> even a small number of packages to cross-compile might be enough for
> many embedded applications.

Definitely.  For cross compilation, I picture a per-package flag in Koji 
that marks it as cross-friendly or not.  There are certainly numerous 
technical and social details to work out to making such a system work 
and work equitably.  We're just getting started.

-- 
Brendan Conoboy / Red Hat, Inc. / blc at redhat.com